You can always tell when Senpu has a particularly rousing bowel movement because he sucks at burying and kind of just lets it sit there and simmer. And waft down the hallway. And kill houseplants. Ugh.

In other news, I haven't been doing particularly awesome about eating healthier, but I haven't had a bad food day in a while, so I thought I'd hop on the scale, and I'm like 4 lbs lighter than I was expecting. Always nice! I just need to keep it up. Hopefully I'll see things start to slide backwards. We're working out in about 30 min, so I'll be ready to burn more off in just a little bit. I got my partner up to 45 min on the bike finally, which means I can keep increasing my time without feeling too bad. I was sitting at 45 for like a month and decided to start moving up anyway (to 46 lol) but I'll probably do 47 today. I'll just keep creeping up until I hit an hour I guess. Originally I decided that 45 min was the goal, and once we hit that, we'd just keep doing 45 min blocks at a time. My workout partner would probably totally be happy with that, but I feel like we need somewhere to go from here, and should do more. Maybe I need to just be happy with 45 min and do it every week day instead of M/W/F... do it M-F and take the weekend off or somthing. I don't know.

Even though we've been doing this for around 6 months or so, I still can't motivate myself to get on that damn bike all that easily. If my freind stopped coming over, I'd probably stop working out right away, because working out is a pain in the ass. Even when I was in highschool, I never got that "runner's high" or anything like that from doing laps around the football field or sweating until I wanted to puke. You work out and feel like crap, then you take a shower and feel happy you are done XD

Anyway.. I really didn't get to say much about my trip last time. I still feel pretty wiped out and behind on my chores, but I have a little time now until I do have to hop on the bike and start my weights.

Wisconsin is a special place. I don't say that just because I have family there, either. There's somthing about the air. I could smell it as soon as we got off the plane in Milwaukee, and that city probably has a good ammount of industral pollution XD As much as things change up there, it still has the same small town feel I got from it when I was little. Everyone talks about southern hospitality, but I honestly haven't met any people nicer than the ones that live up north. Southern hospitality... it sounds nice, but it feels pretty fake. When we go up north... people want to talk to you. It's so much easier to make small talk up there with complete strangers, because they seem genuinely interested in you.

It's somthing my uncle and I briefly discussed when we were getting ready to say goodbye. It's the whole Wisconsin work ethic, I guess. It doesn't matter if you are at a grocery store or a gas station or a sausage factory. Everyone takes some ammount of pride in their work. Working sucks! But chatting with the middle-aged cashier at one of the grocery stores.. you got the feeling that working there was fulfilling to her in some way you don't get down here. It's probably that small town feeling where everyone knows everyone else, and strangers are some sort of novelty XD

I really don't know. It's hard to put into words how different it is. I really do love it up there, but I don't think I could see myself moving up there. I really did used to hate Texas with a passion when I moved down there. After being in Waco a while, I was able to recognize that I just really hated being in the Valley. I can now say that I like Texas, and that there are certain areas I hate, but I don't have to go back to.

The Valley truly is an awful place, and if it wasn't for the fact that Mom lives there, I'd never even consider going back even once for the rest of my life. I can say there's nothing there I miss except for my family.. which in my head doesn't really belong there anyway. It's just the whole feeling you get down there. It's like you are the butt of some joke and everyone things it is hilarious and is in on it except you.. and they all suck at hiding it. It breeds the worst kind of paranoia not induced by any sort of drug. Everyone there hates you, and they let you know with fake smiles and sneers and comments behind your back (in spanish). To belong there, you pretty much have to have been born down there. It's a whole subculture unfreindly to outsiders.

After living there for so long, I started to feel racist, seriously. It's no way to live sitting there wonderinf if you are racist or not. You think of every bad stereotype you've ever heard about Mexicans and start to wonder if you think it's true because of the thousands of examples you've experienced, or if you think it's true because you're really fucking racist. I'm still not sure on that one.

Sometimes I wonder how things would have been different if I'd never lived down there. Would I have grown up in one town moving grade through grade with the same people, having a big group of freinds? Would I be actually interested in my highschool reunions? It's not worth the time to sit and speculate about it. My life here is what I make of it. I don't have a lot of freinds, but the few I have I feel very close to. As much as I hate the valley, there are things I love about where I live now. I don't love how everyone looks miserable at their jobs and practices new and unusual ways to be as unhelpful as possible. People hate their jobs and don't take pride in their work down here. I'm sure everyone everywhere hates working (with the example of crazy bastards like Richard Branson) but taking some sort of pride in what you do instead of treating your job like a soulsucking monster really changes the way you project to other people.

Wow.. Hating on the Valley always gets me way off topic.

I'm really glad I got a chance to go up north and visit everyone, even if one of my cousins didn't seem to give two shits whether or not any of us were there XD I wish I had picked up more of those armadillo snow globe magnets. The one I brought was super popular, and uncle Jon ended up getting a much lamer magnet. I'll owe him a cool one later. I'm not certain when I'll get another chance to go up, though. Maybe in the next 2-3 years we'll try to make it up again. We need to go to Florida and visit the other grandparents.. probably next summer. I have not seen them in forever. I want to say.. not since my wedding. That was 8 years ago. You think.. "Damn, I haven't seen my grandparents in about 10 years" and your gut reaction is "Hell, it couldn't have been that long." But I really can't think of the last time I saw the ones on my Dad's side, and even though we keep in contact by phone, I keep hearing about how both of them are having major medical problems and worrying. Both on Dad's side are having problems, and I feel like a morbid little bastard for even having the thoughts of wondering how much longer they will be around. I think next year, we'll go to Disney for a few days, and then rent a car or somthing and go see them.. stay over there for a day or somthing. Naples has an airport.. maybe we'll fly and rent a car there instead or somthing. We'll figure it out next year.

In the meantime..4 days until my wacky French freind gets here. I still need to get a lot of cleaning done, and figure out where I will take him for dinner his first night here. He said somthing to the gist of "no big deal, but the first place we eat will set the mood for the entire trip"

-..-

NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING

Matt's working a 12-10 shift that day, so I'm going to have to go pick the dude up from the airport by myself, and then we'll go out for dinner. They don't have BBQ of Mexican in France, so I think we'll be eating a lot of that. A lot of meat, too XD He's excited to visit a "real, honest meat loving country." and complained about the tiny peices of sad meat you get in France. Tania suggested we just bring him up and take him to MEAT PARADE (Texas de Brazil). I'm sure he'd love that, but I'm still wondering when we'll have the time XD

And I AM carrying on like nobody's business. Why the hell am I still typing? -..- Time to go pet nugget until Alisha gets here.